Malpertuis (novel)

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Malpertuis is a fantastic novel written in 1943 by the Belgian author Jean Ray .

The novel was filmed in 1971 by Harry Kümel with Orson Welles , Susan Hampshire , Michel Bouquet and Mathieu Carrière in the leading roles, see Malpertuis (film) .

content

A first-person narrator tells how, through the theft in a monastery of the “White Fathers”, he came into possession of a number of manuscripts that tell the story of the House of Malpertuis and its inhabitants. The novel is the fictional reproduction of these texts, which is accompanied by a comment by the first-person narrator. The main focus of these manuscripts are the memoirs of the young grand sire, which deal with the death of his great-uncle Cassave, the owner of Malpertuis. He stipulates that his heirs must live in Malpertuis if they want to inherit his large fortune. A number of figures gather in the eerie building who can be recognized as ancient Greek gods and demigods with their respective power attributes. The novel ends with a report by the first-person narrator, who stays in an inn on the way to Malpertuis and watches a quarreling old couple named Eisengott and Mother Groulle, behind whose masks Zeus and Hera are hiding.

Subject

The novel can be seen as a literary travesty of ancient mythology . The great-uncle Cassave turns out to be a Rosicrucian who succeeded in the 19th century to salvage the remains of the Greek gods and to give them new life through the secret sciences. The attempt to establish a new dynasty of gods in Malpertuis fails due to the power of the Moirai . Fate cannot be manipulated or subdued.

expenditure

  • First edition: Malpertuis. Les Auteurs associés, Brussels 1943
  • Work edition: Oeuvres complètes. Vol. 3: Les Derniers contes de Canterbury, Les Nouveaux contes, Malpertuis. R. Laffont, Paris 1964
  • German first edition: Malpertuis. German by Rein A. Zondergeld . Afterword by Jörg Krichbaum. Insel Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-458-05822-2
  • New edition: translation and epilogue by Rein A. Zondergeld. Festa Vlg., Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-935822-97-9

literature

  • Patrice Allart: D'Arkham à Malpertuis: Jean Ray et Lovecraft. La bibliothèque d'Abdul Alhazred 5. Les Éd. de l'Oeil du sphinx, Paris 2003
  • Thomas Amos: Architectura cimmeria: Mania and manner of fantastic architecture in Jean Ray's Malpertuis. Winter, Heidelberg 2006
  • Colette Dolphin: Méthodes de la statistique linguistique et vocabulaire fantastique de Malpertuis. Slatkine, Geneva 1979

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